


(Calling the) Rain

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [198]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Homelessness, Past Lives, Rain, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 23:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13306056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: The Hero meets the Accursed. In the rain. In the dark. A soldier and a daemon, a king and a ghost.





	(Calling the) Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackJacketsandPens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/gifts).



> 100+ Word Meme  
> Two and a Number Meme: Ardyn & Nyx (Final Fantasy XV) [#30: Rain]
> 
> *The Game happened. And then the World Started Anew? Iunno. Moving on!

It's a fluke, is what it is. Nyx knew that in his heart. He wouldn't have noticed him any other day, he thinks, because he wouldn't have been _out_ any other day. Clear days were... too bright and wrong and full of people, and after sixteen years being a soldier in the night, anything less than _heavily overcast_ or _the sun isn't awake_ was too much. That wasn't the kind of life someone left behind just because of med-boarding.

(The sunshine made his scars hurt, too; shot fire through his arm and up the burns on his face, a sacrifice to see his brother and their princess out alive when nothing else was going to make it happen. If the rain makes his bones hurt, at least it's cool against his flesh.)

But he had been a soldier for sixteen years, had made a career out of it-- and he knew how to pay attention when his brain pointed out strange things, like the wine-colored hair peeking from beneath dirty rags that _could_ have been a hat and scarf, once upon a time. _I know him,_ a part of him thinks, but he has literally never seen this man in his life. He's tucked up under an alcove, where two buildings join up and are seamed together with really bad brickwork. There's an overhang of Galahdian blue that's been tattered by the earlier wind, and it's letting water drip down on the man, and it is calling some absolutely _wretched_ nostalgia up.

All of his senses ping the homeless man as dangerous. That knowledge doesn't really stop Nyx from making his way over to him, lured by the weirdness of _I know you_. It isn't like _he_ isn't dangerous too.

What had Princess Nox Fleuret said? _We've walked this path before, but a different one_?

Nyx scuffed his boot on the wet concrete beneath him, gratified when the man stirred without making him get out of the rain. Eyes cracked open, peering up at him, face pinched in confusion. Nyx hooked his right thumb in a beltloop, continued to let his left arm hang free and nigh useless at his side. Wasn't like there were a lot of people out at this hour for him to feel self-conscious over, and he didn't think the streetlamps threw enough light for anybody not immediately next to him to see the scarring _anyway._

He damned sure wasn't going to feel self-conscious about a hobo.

"Yes?"

Huh. Not a homeless guy's voice. Cultured and eloquent, it sounded like, with that accent. "Hey. You're gonna catch chill out here, and the watch doesn't like people napping on the street. Go inside."

"I'm afraid I would rather not."

 _I know you,_ that tiny part of Nyx insisted. So he shrugged. "You'll get arrested if you don't. Come on. I'll buy you a coffee."

For a long moment the man didn't move, and Nyx thought maybe he wouldn't accept. Selene had been a shaman, and she had put a _lot_ of insistence on gut feelings and nagging thoughts. Nyx hadn't put much stock into it in his life, but he'd never out and out discounted it, either, and he'd _never_ been so sure about something.

But eventually, the man unfolded from the ground, and brushed enough dirt off his clothes (dark, maybe black underneath everything else?) that Nyx feared for a moment he'd turn into mud when he stepped out from under the eave. "As long as it's not Ebony."

Nyx snorted. He had drank enough of that in the service he wasn't inclined to _touch_ it ever again as long as he lived. "Not for my life. Real brew, from ground beans. Come on, I know a place that's open at this hour."

In the streetlight, the stranger's eyes were bright and molten gold, and they watched Nyx back with a sharpness that was distinctly unnerving. They lingered on his face, where the last tongues of fire had left behind the end of their trail, but at least they didn't look disgusted or flinch away, so the guy was already a win in Nyx's book. Indeed, he looked somewhat like he'd seen a ghost.. "Very well then. Lead the way."


End file.
